Tale of the Keepers: Ungolaran
by arashikageriverflower
Summary: Thranduil keeps a dangerous secret from his son, and all Mirkwood pays the price.
1. Prologue

_During the War of the Ring…_

Eagan strode hesitantly into Thranduil's study. "Milord?"

The king turned. "What is it?"

"There is… something you must know."

"Yes?"

Eagan took a deep breath. "My brother, Nilgon, and I – We are only half-Elven. Only Iluvatar knows how we are immortal."

"This I know."

"Did you know, _Ara – Nin_, that – that our mother was a… a human prostitute?"

Thranduil seemed greatly disturbed. "Yes, I did."

"If you know all this, do you know the village from which my mother came? I would like to perhaps find my father."

Thranduil nodded. "Ashton."

"Thank you, milord." Eagan turned to leave.

"Eagan, I – "

"Yes, lord?"

Thranduil sighed heavily. "I wish you luck."

**Ara – Nin = my king**


	2. Chapter 1

Thunder roared as lightning split the weeping skies. The ground trembled and sparks rained on the people's heads.

The Gondorians cheered.

Legolas shook his head as he floated back to earth. "The Keepers were made for more than this, you know."

Ruin cast him a disapproving glance as she silenced the torches with a wave of her hand.

Gimli chuckled. "Not enough excitement for you, laddie?"'

Legolas shrugged. "I guess my life is on display enough as the Nando prince that I don't like this very much. I'd rather be behind the scenes killing orcs."

Ruin shook her head. "You'd rather war?"

"No! But the Dunedain still hunt orc packs!"

Eowyn slowly walked towards them. "What's going on?"

"Legolas wants to fight orcs," Gimli said in mock exasperation.

"So do I."

Legolas shook his head. "Not yet, _Melleth_, not yet."

"Lighten up, Legolas, before our child is born. Unless you want to be like your father is now…"

"Legolas!"

Legolas sighed. "Speak of the Nameless…"

Thranduil rushed to his son. "That was marvelous!"

"Thank you, A – "

"But are you sure it's exactly safe? Remember what happened last time?"

"Yes! And I swear I will never hit myself with lightning ever again!"

"But what if you do it accidentally?"

Eowyn chuckled. "Come on, Gimli, Ruin. Good luck, Legolas?"

Legolas groaned. _"Kill me now. Please."_

The winds near him stirred. _"Shall we send him away?"_

"_Not yet."_

"Where is King Thranduil? Where is Prince Legolas?"

Legolas looked up to see an Elven rider approaching, garbed in Eryn Lasgalen armor. "Father."

"I see." Thranduil made his way to the rider. "_Ai_, _mellon_, Alquagon! What has happened?"

Legolas drew closer to see that the captain of the guard held his arm over his chest, staunching the flow of blood from a wound.

Alquagon reined his horse in. "Spiders! Led by one of our own! Yrndaerond is lost, and the people have been attacked by orcs not far from here. Nilgon defends them."

Legolas shot into the sky. "Battle! Battle on the road! We fight orcs!" Gathering the winds, he flew to the site of the battle.

The large party of Elves was beset on all sides by orcs. Nilgon led the fighting force valiantly, but they were severely outnumbered.

Legolas snarled as two orcs drew closer to a group of escaped Elflings. Reaching down with invisible fingers, he ripped the air from their lungs. Even as those collapsed, he landed near Nilgon and raised his hands in a sudden burst of anger. All orcs were lifted above Elven heads and carried off to Orodruin.

Nilgon leaned against his sword, exhausted and wounded. "Le – Legolas?"

"Yes. I take it Father didn't tell you about my gift?"

"He probably did. I was just… glad you were alive."

Cirel rushed up. "Nilgon, sit down. Your wounds need tending."

Nilgon nodded as he pretty much collapsed into a sitting position.

Legolas looked around for his other friend. "Where is Eagan?"

Cirel looked up cautiously. "Eagan is the new king of Mirkwood."

"Ungolaran, he calls himself," Nilgon gasped. "Said it was… his right."

Legolas turned away, troubled. "Rest, Nilgon. The people are safe."

**Melleth = love (as an endearment)**

**Ai, Mellon, Alquagon = Hail, friend, Alquagon**

**Yrndaerond = Hall of Great Trees (my name for the Halls of the Elvenking)**


	3. Chapter 2

"I don't understand." Aragorn sighed as he took in Legolas' report. "How is Nilgon?"

"He'll be fine. I'm more concerned about our people's home." Legolas shook his head. "Yrndaerond has always the Nandor's refuge, but now no Elf can step foot into Eryn Lasgalen! It's a country of spiders, ruled by a phony king!"

"Now that's what I don't understand."

"What?"

"You said you remembered Eagan as a simple, rational being, and according to Nilgon, he's claiming it's his right to rule. Why?"

Legolas fell silent. "I don't know. Perhaps my father does. Any right would have to have come through him or my grandfather."

"Speak with him?"

Legolas nodded.

"Good." Aragorn sighed again. "I've been doing some research on the Keepers. Elladan and Elrohir have been helping by searching Elrond's library."

"What have you found?"

"Something interesting. And something foreboding."

"Let's hear them both."

Aragorn nodded. "Elladan and Elrohir found a manuscript that refers to the Keepers as 'sleeping Valar', of them as beings from Iluvatar's realm but unaware of it."

"That makes more sense of some things I heard in Aman. Did they send you the manuscript?"

"A meticulous copy. I'll have it sent to you later tonight."

"_Hannon – le_. And the foreboding?"

"A prophecy of some sort. It talks about a sacrifice for peace to reign. Here..."

Legolas took the proffered document and read.

_A king in the eaves_

_Drives out the rightful ruler_

_No one left to hear the screams_

_The noise of spiders_

_Blood is asked, blood will be paid_

_Wind, river, earth, flame, who will choose?_

_Who will step up to end the reign of terror?_

"This – " Legolas shook his head.

Aragorn nodded. "I know."

"No, you don't. I've been doing some research myself. If one of the Keepers dies, the world is thrown out of balance. Arda ends."

"And before Eowyn was born? There were only three, then. Before Gimli, two. Before you, one. Before Ruin, none. Who do you suppose kept the world in balance, then?"

"Iluvatar."

"Then maybe Iluvatar will do so again."

"And if he doesn't?"

"Then you might want to discuss this amongst yourselves."

Legolas decided to walk to the Silvan encampment. _"I can't let Eowyn make the sacrifice. Or Gimli. Or even Ruin. And neither Gimli nor Eowyn will let me…"_

The winds stirred. _"We do not know prophecy. The future is always changing. Blown here, blown there, beings make their own paths, and Iluvatar's will is a forest."_

A familiar rhythm caused Legolas to look up. Rovailros had perched himself above the gates of Minas Tirith. _"Do you bring news?"_

Rovailros dipped his head. _"Your sire is greatly agitated, muttering something about dams and foals…"_

"_I'd better meet with him. Then with the other Keepers…"_ Legolas sighed. _"It seems true that great gifts at times come disguised as great burdens."_

The winds wreathed around him soothingly.

**Hannon – le = Thank you**


	4. Chapter 3

Thranduil paced back and forth, chewing his nails ragged.

"Ada?"

He jumped. "Legolas!"

The Windkeeper nodded. "Rovailros said you were troubled. What's wrong?"

"Well… worried for the people, I guess."

Legolas regarded his father sagely. _"Do you know what he's hiding?"_

A small breeze moved around the room. _"He is greatly distraught."_

"_Yes."_

"_I see no cause."_

"_Only the effects."_

"_Indeed."_

Legolas sighed. "We're all worried for the people. I wanted to ask you something."

"Go ahead."

"Eagan has always been a rational person, not given to fancies and fantasies, very much ground in reality. So why is he claiming the right to rule?"

Thranduil shook his head. "I do not know. And that is the truth."

"Is it?"

The king suddenly became very nervous.

"Father, I need to know."

"Some things are better left in the dark, _tithen_ _laeglas_."

"But everything eventually sees the light."

Thranduil sighed and bowed his head.

"I'm taking Gimli and Ruin at dawn to see what can be done. Anything you can tell me would be most useful." Legolas walked away, out into the camp.

"Alagos!" Ruin called from behind him. "Why not Ascarnen? We are four, not three."

Legolas nodded. "Nor are we five."

"You're afraid."

"Shouldn't I be? But you're right, we need to talk."

"At the Tooth. I'll find Glamrencil."

The Witch's Tooth was a strange landmark, made of black stone, that had sprouted from the ground in the exact spot where the Witch King of Angmar fell. An evil radiated from it so that, although the Keepers and the unborn child were protected, no other being would come near it. It was the site of most meeting of the Keepers.

Soon the four were gathered. "What is it laddie?" Gimli asked.

Legolas sighed. Aragorn found another prophecy concerning us. It speaks of a time when spiders rule the forest and the Keepers – one of us – must pay a blood sacrifice to end it."

"But your research…" Eowyn let that thought trail off.

"Exactly."

Ruin pursed her lips in thought. "It doesn't say if one of us dies, Arda ends."

"What?"

"No, she's right." Eowyn snapped her fingers. "It says if one of us leaves Arda, the world ends. You and Gimli, at least at first, don't leave Arda when you die."

Legolas shrugged. "Alright, I can die again," he joked, then yelped as Eowyn smacked his arm. "What was that for?"

Eowyn's only response was a glare.

"You'd rather Gimli die?"

"I didn't say that."

Gimli cleared his throat. "The fact remains, lad and lasses, only Aule knows who will die."

"It asks 'Who will choose?'"

Legolas nodded. "In any case, Ruin, Gimli, I want you two to accompany me scouting out Eryn Lasgalen at dawn."

"Why not me?" Eowyn demanded.

"Because I love you too much. You can come later."

"When the threat is gone?"

"Eowyn, we'll talk later. Gimli? Ruin?"

Gimli pretended to give it some thought. "I haven't tried my axe on spiders before… aye, I'll come with you, laddie."

Ruin nodded. "You know my answer."

Eowyn seethed silently as the three made plans.


	5. Chapter 4

"Are we going to talk about it now?"

Legolas sighed as he sat next to his wife on their bed. "It's too dangerous."

Eowyn shook her head and began unbraiding his hair. "And facing a Nazgul isn't? Hm?"

"How's your arm?"

"Legolas!"

"I mean it."

Eowyn sighed. "Still goes numb from time to time."

"And isn't that your sword arm? Thank you."

Eowyn nodded and sat back. "Yes, it is… But Ruin's teaching me to fight with my element and only my hands and feet."

"I know."

"It was supposed to be a surprise."

"It's not anymore, either way." Legolas shed his shirt. "You're not experienced enough."

"Isn't that her call?"

"I've been doing the same thing for three and a half hundred years. And I'm your husband."

"So now you're playing that! You haven't done that once in the five years we've been married!"

Legolas sighed. "I'm worried for you. Both you and our son."

Eowyn smiled. "What makes you think it's a boy?"

"That is what Ruin told you, isn't it?"

"Is nothing a secret from you?"

"Eh… Father seems quite capable of keeping things hidden."

"What's wrong?"

"He's… unsettled. He won't say why, and the winds can't find anything." Legolas laid back on the pillows. "I don't know what to do, other than ask Cirel to keep an eye on him."

"Cirel?"

"Another friend of mine. He's the stablemaster and a healer. He's also the son of one of the Elves who aided us at Helm's Deep."

"Which one?"

Legolas only shook his head. "And he has a better sense of intuition than most. I'll probably leave a wind as a messenger, too."

"But not to look after me, right?"

"No, that's why the guards are her."

"Right." Eowyn laid next to her husband. "I forgot that I can't take care of myself."

"I didn't say that."

"No, of course you didn't."

"_Erynloth _– _nin_, listen to me." Legolas rolled on his side and tilted Eowyn's chin so she faced him. "I have no doubt that you are more than capable of defending not only yourself and our child, but the entire camp also. However, I love you too much to take the slightest risk that you get hurt: to send you to the front lines and see you almost dead. Again."

Eowyn shook her head. "Legolas, we're Keepers. Risking our lives to protect others is our responsibility. All four of us. One of these days, you'll have to accept that."

"Well. I have all eternity to think about it."

"You know that may not be true."


	6. Chapter 5

Legolas gazed over the forest below. "I don't get how he could do this to our home."

Gimli closed his eyes, feeling sick. "Just. Get. Me. Down."

"Alright, alright." Legolas stroked Rovailros' mane. "Take us to the ground, my friend. Just outside the forest."

Rovailros snorted in reply and flew down to where Ruin waited.

Gimli hastily slid to the muddy ground and buried his hands in it.

"What does it tell you?"

"There are fifty spiders all told, but then there are egg sacs in the Elvenking's halls. Eagan does not stray from there. What do the trees tell you?"

"They're smothered by webs, but those are vulnerable to heat. There are about ten spiders presently in our way."

Ruin nodded. "Let me go first."

"Please try not to burn down the forest."

"Of course not."

The three had gone no further than ten feet past the treeline when they encountered their first web. Ruin approached it cautiously, then she held up her hands – already glowing with heat – and touched it. It dissolved instantly with an acrid smell. "Legolas," she called softly. "Do you have an arrow nocked?"

Legolas sighted down the road and released an arrow into the gloom. He was rewarded with a gruesome squelch. "Straight to the brain. Can't get much better than that."

"Remind me to congratulate you later." Ruin pressed forward, reaching out with all her senses. Very soon, another web blocked their path. Once again, she was wary, looking and listening for any sign that there was a spider on the other side. She reached up to touch the web just as it imploded. "Legolas!" she shouted as she rolled out of the way.

The spider screeched and charged the Elf-Prince.

Legolas smiled and shot the spider in the eye, then he whirled around and loosed two arrows in quick succession. Two more screeches sounded.

"Duck!" Gimli rose on a pillar of earth and lopped off the head of a spider above.

Ruin roared and a bright light bathed the road ahead.

Legolas stood as Gimli shrank and shot a spider that was had been waiting, then another sneaking up on Ruin. He bent backwards as one spider swung its poisonous stinger at his chest and shot it in the brain. As it fell between him and Ruin, he winked at her. "It's later."

"Legolas!"

Legolas gasped as another spider's stinger erupted through his chest. He fell to the ground, moaning in pain. He dimly heard Ruin and Gimli screaming.

"Gimli, get him out of here!"

Gimli lifted his friend over his shoulder and ran for the treeline. A spider dropped in front of him, but it ran away screaming when a ball of fire buried itself in its abdomen.

None too soon, a panting dwarf and woman and a half-dead Elf emerged from Mirkwood forest and collapsed on the rocks. Legolas whimpered as he hit the ground. Ruin slowly crawled to a nearby pool, exhausted. "Get him in the water. It'll help… draw the poison out."

"You alright, lass?"

"Doesn't matter. I'll live. He might not."

Gimli nodded and dragged Legolas into the water, which came up to the Dwarf's waist.

Half-conscious, Legolas screamed as the water soaked his wound.

Ruin waded out and splashed water onto Legolas' chest. "Ascarnen should've come. She could ask the water to bond to the venom; it would make this process much more – Ah! – sure."

"Sit down, and tell me where you're hurt," Gimli ordered. "Then we'll have to take him to her."

"How?" Ruin sat down and gestured to her shoulder. "He doesn't have much time."

Rovailros neighed from the shore of the pool and the winds rushed in to lift Legolas. The Elf Prince gasped and groaned in pain as he was draped over his steed's back. Rovailros looked to the other two Keepers.

Ruin nodded. "Godspeed, friend. We will follow on foot."


	7. Chapter 6

Legolas awoke back in the Silvan camp, his chest tightly bound. Eowyn sat beside him, but a curtain of hair shielded her face from view. "Hey."

Eowyn looked up hopefully. "Hey. I thought you'd never wake up fully."

"Fully?"

"You woke up once before, long enough to scream about a spider in here. The regular-size type."

"What happened to me?"

"Spider venom. When Rovailros brought you in, Cirel thought you were dead. Your father locked himself away, and I nearly fainted."

Legolas nodded. "Ruin and Gimli?"

"Gimli will be back from lunch soon. Ruin's training."

"How long was I out?"

"Five days. The winds have been pretty restless; the people, too."

"Eh, Silvans were made for the trees. Camping out on the Pelennor isn't exactly ideal."

Eowyn smiled, then leaned down and kissed Legolas. "I love you."

"I love you, too."

"Is he awake?" Gimli walked into the tent.

Legolas made a face. "Awake enough to smell the Dorwinian wine on your beard. Don't the cooks know not to give you the heavy drink?"

Gimli belched loudly. "They didn't exactly give it to me."

Eowyn and Legolas shared a look.

The winds rushed in. _"Sulgarthpen! Sulgarthpen! Are you well?"_

"_Well enough. Ascarnen said you were restless. You weren't causing trouble were you?"_

"_We- Well, that is – We toyed with the fat Elf that makes the food."_

"_What else?"_

"_We kept an eye on your father for you as you asked."_

"_What did you discover?"_

"_Nothing."_

Legolas sighed and turned back to Eowyn and Gimli. "Eagan?"

"Nothing," Eowyn reported. "It seems all he wanted was the throne of Mirkwood. If he's not going to do anything else, why not let him have it?"

"Have you ever lost your home, lass?" Gimli asked. "No, you haven't. The Uruk-Hai never touched Edoras, and they never found you in Aglarond, either. So trust me when I tell you that if Rohan had been lost, you'd do anything to get it back."

Eowyn fell silent.

"Is he up?" Nilgon burst in.

"Yes," Legolas called.

"Thranduil is just behind me. He wants to speak with the two of us alone."


End file.
